Monday in Louisiana

You know the history: Monday was wash day in old New Orleans and its rural environs, which prompted women to come up with a dish that could simmer away with little intervention. Plentiful red beans and rice fit the bill, and the tradition of serving this ubiquitous South Louisiana dish on Mondays (and throughout the week) holds forth today among chefs and home cooks.

Few dishes are as inexpensive or easy to prepare, and it’s the first dish many young people master. Like chili, vegetable soup and other one-pot wonders, red beans and rice is unstructured and highly personal. Our regional DNA requires we know the basics, but every cook or chef steers the dish independently. Local yoga instructor and serious foodie Monique Evans says her red beans are enhanced by honey-baked hambones, which she filches from hosts during the holiday season. If that sounds unusually sweet, there’s precedent. The Jr. League of Baton Rouge’s inimitable instruction book, River Road Recipes (1959) features two recipes for red beans and rice and one declares that two tablespoons of sugar will “improve the whole effect.” The other incorporates a pound of sliced pepperoni and cumin. Years ago, when I volunteered with a Habitat for Humanity chapter in Cajun country, the homeowner reported that two sticks of margarine was her secret. Margarine, not butter. Personally, I think the answer lies in bay leaves and generous salt.

So what do you think? Is it a hunk of smoked sausage with enough meltaway fat to infuse the whole pot? Is a slow cooker or seasoned cast iron the right medium? Most of us add chopped onion, but how about garlic or celery? Where’s your favorite place to order red beans and rice around town? And would you like to know how they do it?

Let us hear from you. Next week, on 225Dine, we’ll post some of your feedback. Post your thoughts here, or email me directly at [email protected]. Find me on Twitter @mhrwriter, or tweet us @225batonrouge #spatuladiaries.

Maggie Heyn Richardson’s work has appeared in Eating Well, Taste of the South, WRKF and on the national public radio program, On Point. She writes about food and wine for 225, and is working on a book about Louisiana foodways to be published by the LSU Press.